


one of these days i'm gonna wriggle up on dry land

by heroboof



Category: Homestuck, Homestuck 2
Genre: Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (implied), Defensive Weight, Enforced Food Rationing, F/M, Fat Character, Gymnastics, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Men's Artistic Gymnastics, Other, Scrapes & Bruises, minor injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:33:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24716125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heroboof/pseuds/heroboof
Summary: Tavros Crocker undertakes midnight gymnastics, reflects on his weight, and thinks about Gamzee, much to his chagrin.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25





	one of these days i'm gonna wriggle up on dry land

**Author's Note:**

> I know some of the tags look very silly, but everything tagged is in fact present in the work, so please be careful. 
> 
> Title is from "Hast Thou Considered The Tetrapod" by The Mountain Goats.

The gymnasium is cavernous and silent, the only sound echoing in the massive room the deep breaths of the boy standing at the top of the mat leading to the vault. His uniform is red, branded with the infamous Crockercorp spork, but this is no competition. No roaring crowds, no cameras, no clown standing in the corner and watching with hunger in his eyes. Instead, the aching silence of the witching hour stretches on into infinity in the massive silence of the private gym his mother built for him the day he expressed a mild interest in gymnastics. The fluorescent lights flicker on the roof, deep below the earth, like a reminder that the ground is heavy and cold above him. Like a grave. He shifts his stance slightly, preparing himself.

Deep breath in.

Out.

Another.

Tavros II Crocker does not have a classically athletic body, despite his prowess in the arena where he is currently training. The press has its theories, of course- they talk about genetics, about how he must have inherited his mother’s figure. They talk about what a shame it is that he isn’t beautiful like his father. That his body is not the sort that can be easily stripped to near-nudity and admired, praised as the ideal male body. His ass will not sell cereal, his abs will not be profitable in a marketing campaign, his pectorals and biceps will never adorn billboards. His mother was furious after that particular meeting with the PR team, banished him to his room, met with the family chef and a nutritionist in order to ration his meals in order to force him to shed the baby fat that sat roundly on his cheeks and hips and belly.

His father didn’t argue it either, though he looked sad. Tavros didn’t care, snuck to the kitchen at hours like these and fed himself when the one meal he was allowed in a day left him aching and exhausted. 

He has been self-sufficient for a very long time. It is hard to be anything else in the labyrinthine house where he ekes out his survival, running and scavenging and barely surviving. He feels at times like a rat trapped in a cage, and though his mother has recently allowed him an hour-long excursion every weekday after tutoring and two hours on the weekends, the majority of his time is spent within the walls of the Crocker mansion.

His hands make contact with the vault moments after his feet connect with the springboard and he is suddenly airborne. The weight of his body becomes a tool, momentum pushing him further and higher at the same time as it attempts to pull him back down to the ground below. He has learned to move in the shape of his body so far in much the same way as he learned to wade in the olympic-sized pool his mother had built (HeY lItTlE mOtHeRfUcKeR, pUlL tHoSe TrUnKs DoWn FoR mE aNd ShOw UnClE gAmZeE wHaT yOu MoThErFuCkIn’ GoT gOiNg On UnDeR tHaT sQuIdDlE pRiNt-), the drag and resistance of water and flesh. That doesn’t matter now. It doesn’t matter. There is only gravity and the lack of it and he firmly refuses to feel the phantom sensation of hands on his body, untended claws digging into soft flesh.

Deep breath in.

Out.

Another.

He’d fumbled the landing slightly, wobbled on the dismount, and that won’t do. Catching his breath and chalking his hands, he walks back to the end of the mat, ground-bound once again. Chalk gets on his face when he moves to push his glasses up on the broad bridge of his nose, forgetting for a moment that he’s wearing contact lenses. The blue mats on the floor of the gym stick slightly with each step, and the sound of his footsteps on them is calming. He gets back in position, jogs in place for a moment, and moves forward again.

Vrissy is never present at his competitions, but she watches, booing him in the live chats of streaming news services with their cameras trained on his body. Knowing her eyes are on him is the only reason he doesn’t get upset when the press shows up. Enough people stare at him at competitions already, and he can feel each individual set of eyes boring holes into him. His mother, irritated with his underperforming, wondering how she’ll be able to market him if he can’t even win a competition. His father, watching the red of his uniform more than his performance. It’s a mercy when he’s clearly drunk, because his mother doesn’t bring him then. Silas is usually there as well, thankfully uninterested, watching him only because of obligation.

It’s the worst when Gamzee watches him at competitions, when he can feel him staring- leering- admiring the way his body moves on the pommel horse, the tension and wobble of his arms on the rings, the curl of his torso as he flips end-over-end on the vault. He knows Gamzee is mentally undressing him, and it throws him off every time, makes him feel filthy without even being touched.

Deep breath in.

Out.

Another.

Vrissy, though, he doesn’t mind. She messages him when he gets home, tells him his technique is shit, tells him how to get better. He knows she has no real interest in gymnastics. She looks up techniques and coaches him because she hates him, wants him to be better than he is. He worries that he’s not a good kismesis, sometimes. He doesn’t ask what she thinks of his body, assumes she hates it- not in the sweet way where they murmur “i hate yous” to each other, where they kiss in the backseat of his car during his hour of freedom with too much teeth to be entirely pleasant.

He’s never let her see him in less than a button-down shirt and suspenders, flinches slightly when she tries to undo his top button. She doesn’t ask about it, and he loves her more than hates her for that small mercy. She doesn’t mind that he flinches sometimes when she touches him, doesn’t bring it up when a hand on his waist makes him recoil. He does his best to make it up to her, to treat her the way she deserves. He researches social media algorithms and the posting habits of influencers, tries to make her life as good as she makes his.

The cold quiet of night is his sanctuary and he doesn’t tell her this. He makes no mention that the dark silence of the empty gym is the one place he has ever felt somewhat secure. Even his bedroom is not quite so safe as this. Gamzee cannot touch him in the air, and he doesn’t have to wonder here if he will wake up to the rancid scent of sopor pie and Faygo exhaled onto the back of his neck. To the sensation of sopor-sticky, cracking claws scraping their way down the front of his body. Here, he doesn’t have to wonder if Gamzee will be too high to finish the deed, if he’s gone enough that Tavros will be able to escape with only a few minutes of fumbling, fingers digging roughly into the softness of his flesh or if he will make him suffer for daring to move so much as an unwanted inch.

Deep breath in.

Out.

Another.

A brief shudder is all it takes to fail, and he crashes hard into the soft mat that now feels unforgiving, that he knows will bruise. Landing with his full and impressive weight on one shoulder has knocked the wind out of him. Tavros lays there on his front for a moment, gasping for the breath that has abandoned him before rolling onto his back, eyes making contact with the ceiling above him, the flickering lights that feel almost like a mockery. He sits up. Inspects the damage.

There is blood on his shoulder where it grazed the rough surface of the vault, scraped off the skin. It’s not bleeding profusely, so he ignores it, gets to his feet, lets it drip onto the mats below him. It stings, of course it does, and it drips down his shoulder, stains his singlet a darker red. It makes him think, briefly, about the garb of the gods. He holds no reverence for them, though they did create the planet where he lives, and more directly, two of them created him.

The blood, he notes, has stained the vault itself slightly. He passes it by on the way back to the run-up, grinding chalk into his hands like his palm is a mortar. This will not be the first time the cleaning staff has found blood on Tavros’ things. They joke about it like it’s a contagion, wonder aloud how one boy can bleed so much. They find it on the insides of his shirtsleeves, his bathroom sink, the sheets of his bed. Little streaks or flakes of red, clinging to him, forming the shape of him in the world. There is so much blood (If YoU dIdN’t StRuGgLe So MuCh I wOuLdN’t HaVe To HuRt YoU sO mOtHeRfUcKiN’ bAd). There is always so much blood.

Deep breath in.

Out.

Another.

Tavros II Crocker knows he is heavy, knows it when his hands hit the vault again, knows it when little flecks of blood are thrown out of his shoulder as he spins over and around himself in midair. He knows, because of it, that it is harder for Gamzee to lift him up, harder for him to hold him, to hurt him, to manipulate his body in a thousand little ways into being small and obedient and following the whims of the full-grown troll who haunts his nightmares. His body is safety as much as it is power, a well-built fortress that protects him from the hell in which he must fight through every day in order to continue breathing.

He watches himself now like he does in the corner of his own bedroom, watches the fortress he inhabits coil and twist through the air as he almost flies, no eyes on him but his own. He knows tonight he will once again stand sentry over his own flesh as Gamzee walks into his room, not bothering to even pretend to hide as he does. It is a hellish contract, and both of them know that Tavros has no allies here, that no-one will help him. He learned this for himself when he discovered that his screaming would bring no friendly hand, no concerned father or even furious mother rushing into the room in order to save him from the terror that stalks their home. 

He will not be saved.

This landing is managed with perfect form, ideal balance, both feet planted solidly on the mat as blood runs down his shoulder, already starting to dry and congeal on the scrape it dribbled from initially. He gasps for air as the shock from his landing travels roughly up his legs, eyes shut tight as he braces himself post-landing.

He is interrupted in his brief silence by the shrill chime of a Crocker-brand smartwatch, the one resting on top of his bag that he’d set to go off at the end of his routine. He doesn’t want to go back to his room, of course, doesn’t want to brave the treacherous labyrinth of halls between this safe haven and the hellhole where he has to sleep tonight again.  The shower attached is empty, but he doesn’t use it, changes in private into his pajamas and house slippers before braving the labyrinth again. He will want a shower again later, and despite his family’s wealth, would much rather not waste water.

A little click turns off the fluorescent lights, and he locks the door carefully, bag hanging off of his back as he goes. It goes back into its place after the half-hour slow creep through the mansion back to his room, hanging off the back of the door inside his closet. He kicks off his slippers and crawls into bed, feeling the heavy stones of the fortress that is his body sink down into the too-soft mattress.

He is barely able to sleep before he hears the door creak open, a soft honk accompanying the footsteps. A weight settles on the bed beside his body.

Deep breath in.

Out.

Another.


End file.
